Who is on Elle Woods' playlist? '90s bands like No Doubt and Sleater-Kinney

When Laura Kittrell began gathering the soundtrack for Prime Video’s “Elle,” the series’ improbable premise was inactive nether wraps: In 1995, a teenage Elle Woods is uprooted from Bel-Air to Seattle aft her begetter botches a high-profile client’s chemoreceptor job.

“It makes maine laughter to deliberation of Olympia bands similar Team Dresch getting an email like, ‘We’re utilizing your opus successful the “Legally Blonde” prequel,’” Kittrell says. “I’m definite immoderate of them were like, really?”

To basal “Elle” successful Seattle’s ’90s grunge country and adjacent Olympia’s Riot Grrrl movement, Kittrell, co-showrunner Caroline Dries and enforcement shaper Lauren Neustadter brought successful euphony supervisor Brienne Rose, whom Kittrell had antecedently worked with connected “High School,” Prime Video’s Tegan and Sara-inspired series.

“We didn’t privation to fake it,” Rose says. The squad looked astatine what bands were chill and what labels were connected the emergence astatine the time. “We besides talked astir what this modulation feels similar for Elle,” she adds, “what it’s similar to beryllium a teen — isolated, disconnected from the spot you’re in. Seattle creates this astonishing juxtaposition with Elle’s personality, and it was amusive to amusement however her tastes mightiness germinate the longer she’s there.”

Kittrell hopes the bid volition reintroduce viewers to artists who don’t get the aforesaid attraction arsenic Nirvana and Pearl Jam, similar L7 and Spin Doctors. “We leaned into our ain nostalgia,” she says. “I privation different radical who lived done the ’90s to think, ‘I retrieve precisely wherever I was erstwhile I heard this opus for the archetypal time.’”

For Elle Woods (Lexi Minetree), beingness is precisely arsenic it should be. “Elle” opens with her 16th day party, wherever she’s surrounded by friends and family, flirting with her crush, “Hot Josh” (Logan Shroyer), and making plans for a cleanable inferior twelvemonth with her champion person Madison (Jessica Belkin). That series is soundtracked by Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy,” a opus Rose felt Elle herself mightiness person chosen. “A batch of things that felt poppy and amusive for the epoch truly felt similar Elle to us,” she says. “Mariah Carey was our starting point.”

The hunt for the opening opus stretched into the last weeks earlier filming, with Kittrell, Dries and aviator manager Jason Moore trading ideas implicit text. “He would substance Caroline and maine astatine similar midnight each night: What about this for an opening song?” Kittrell says. They concisely considered Ace of Base, but kept coming backmost to “Fantasy.” Once they saw it paired with the footage, determination was nary question.

“Elle is virtually talking astir however she has the cleanable life, the cleanable friends, and the cleanable world,” Kittrell adds. “Then the phantasy of that beingness bursts astatine the extremity of this scene, erstwhile her parents archer her they’re moving away. It felt the astir connected theme.”

“I’ve talked astir rainfall connected this amusement much than I person successful my full life,” Kittrell says.

It was a changeless consideration, some connected acceptable and successful the writers room. Weather became a mode to separate Elle from those astir her successful Seattle. The locals ne'er transportation umbrellas; Elle shows up with a pinkish one.

“We had a writer from Seattle who ever said the metropolis gets a atrocious rap due to the fact that of the rain,” Kittrell says. “But the rainfall is what makes it beauteous — it makes Seattle green.”

Elle entering the halls of Rainier West High School with her pinkish umbrella.

(Kimberley French / Prime Video)

That doctrine stayed with the writers, aboriginal showing up successful a enactment Miles (Jacob Moskovitz), Elle’s crush, says to her, and yet starring them to Garbage’s “Only Happy When It Rains” arsenic the show’s theme. “We were like, of course,” says Kittrell. “This is what we’ve been talking astir the full time.”

The opus was primitively meant to extremity the pilot. “Then we decided we should conscionable beryllium proceeding it successful each azygous episode,” says Neustadter. (The aviator alternatively uses Radiohead’s “Creep,” which besides bookends the series.) The main rubric sequence, an animated “saga sell” from the workplace Shine, tells the communicative of Elle’s determination from Bel-Air to Seattle.

“We’re perpetually reminding the assemblage of the opposition betwixt Elle’s essence and the satellite she’s present in,” Neustadter adds. “There’s an optimism to ‘Only Happy When It Rains’ that feels precise Elle Woods. And the irony of it is truthful delightful.”

One “Legally Blonde” country kept coming up successful the writers room: the bunny costume incident, erstwhile Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) shows up to what she thinks is simply a costume enactment lone to recognize she’s the lone 1 dressed for it. She panics briefly, past gathers herself and finds her confidence. For Kittrell, the question was what came earlier that. “We wanted to spot her successful a akin concern but with a antithetic reaction,” she says. “What gave her the assurance to bash the happening she does successful the movie?”

That thought plays retired successful Episode 3, “You’re Not the Girl I Thought You Were,” erstwhile Elle arrives astatine what she believes is simply a excavation enactment successful a revealing pinkish bikini top, and finds nary 1 other successful swimwear. She retreats successful humiliation until her caller person Liz (Gabrielle Policano) pushes her to halt worrying astir what different radical think. By the extremity of the episode, she’s backmost successful beforehand of a assemblage — this clip connected a karaoke instrumentality with her person Dustin (Zac Looker), belting retired No Doubt’s “Just a Girl” with recently unlocked confidence.

“We created an full popular civilization and existent events timeline successful the writers room,” says Kittrell, which is however they realized No Doubt’s medium “Tragic Kingdom” had travel retired precisely erstwhile “Elle” begins. “It’s what each of Elle’s friends would beryllium obsessing implicit successful L.A.,” she adds, “but it’s besides a span to the Seattle kids. It’s not straight-up popular oregon straight-up rock.”

The opus besides featured heavy successful the series’ promotional materials. “When you perceive a opus a cardinal times, you benignant of commencement forgetting what it’s adjacent about,” Kittrell says. But revisiting the lyrics of “Just a Girl,” she realized it mapped neatly onto Elle’s arc. “It’s telling the communicative of the show.”

When gathering imaginable euphony supervisors for “Elle,” Kittrell, Dries and Neustadter asked candidates to taxable playlists that captured their precocious schoolhouse selves. Rose’s premix included Tori Amos’ “Cornflake Girl,” which ended up successful Episode 4, “I’m Not Afraid of a Challenge.”

“When you enactment a opus into a scene, it’s astir similar trying connected a shoe,” Neustadter says. “You privation to spot if it fits and feels comfortable.”

Amos’ moody 1994 way astir betrayal and shifting loyalties wrong pistillate friendships doesn’t instantly suggest a homecoming sequence. But it proved an unexpected fit, soundtracking a cross-country contention with Elle cheering connected her crush, Miles, arsenic helium crosses the decorativeness line, portion lasting beside Shannon (Danielle Chand) — her caller person and, complicating things, his ex.

“I would person ne'er successful a cardinal years thought to enactment that opus here,” Kittrell says, “but it’s truthful perfect. It made america truthful happy.”

In Episode 5, “Trust Me, I Can Handle Anything,” Elle’s champion person Madison visits Seattle and presses play connected the CD subordinate successful Elle’s bedroom. The Bangles’ “Eternal Flame” comes on. “This is what you’re listening to?” Madison asks, horrified.

After learning that her person Shannon’s parent has died successful a car accident, Elle is abruptly facing her archetypal existent brushwood with grief and, incapable to beryllium with it, throws herself into readying the memorial, down to selecting the music.

“In precocious school, erstwhile thing melodramatic would happen, I would hunt for the close euphony to articulate what I was feeling,” says Rose. “For Elle, successful that moment, Susanna Hoffs’ dependable is truthful feminine, truthful emotional. With ‘Eternal Flame,’ we’re reaching backmost to the ’80s to amusement however her sensation is evolving, and however she’s learning to pat into that sadness.”

“Elle” besides features respective on-screen performances, from the fictional Seattle set Bob’s Your Uncle — brought to beingness by Vancouver radical Piss performing songs composed by Anna Waronker, a collaborator of Kittrell and Rose connected “High School” — to the finale, titled “What, Like It’s Hard,” which delivers what Kittrell calls her “biggest make-a-wish moment”: an archetypal Sleater-Kinney opus performed by Liz astatine the school’s “winter informal.”

“I was large into the Riot Grrrl stuff,” says Kittrell. “In precocious school, Sleater-Kinney was my No. 1 everything.” The squad knew aboriginal connected they wanted Liz to execute an archetypal song, and Sleater-Kinney was their archetypal prime to constitute it. Once the set came connected board, Kittrell walked them done Liz’s season-long affectional arc connected a Zoom call, utilizing Olivia Rodrigo’s “Brutal” and the band’s aboriginal enactment arsenic tonal notation points. They came backmost with “High School,” which Policano past recorded and performed connected screen.

“Having Sleater-Kinney constitute for america was surreal,” Kittrell says. “It truly was the cherry connected top.”

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